Deep Sequencing of Viroid-Derived Small RNAs from Grapevine Provides New Insights on the Role of RNA Silencing in Plant-Viroid Interaction

Abstract

These findings show that different Dicer-like enzymes (DCLs) target viroid RNAs, preferentially accessing to the same viroid domains. Interestingly, our results also suggest that viroid RNAs may interact with host enzymes involved in the RNA-directed DNA methylation pathway, indicating more complex scenarios than previously thought for both vd-sRNAs genesis and possible interference with host gene expression.